Dear Romie:
I read Dennings first book in the context of knowledge management practices
and look forward to reading the latest effort. From the reviews and preface
on Amazon:
"A springboard story enables a leap in understanding by the audience so that
they are able to grasp how an organization or community or complex system
may change. It can enable listeners to visualize from a story in one
context what is involved in a large-scale transformation in an analogous
context. The springboard story engages the audience by creating a scenario
they can see themselves in. The audience once engaged is able to discover
their own solutions for the challenges they face. Storytelling gets inside
the minds of the individuals who collectively make up the organization and
affects how they think, worry, wonder, agonize and dream about themselves
and in the process create and recreate their organization. Storytelling
enables the individuals in an organization to see themselves and the
organization in a different light. The result is that the audience is able
to take decisions and change their behavior in accordance with these new
perceptions, insights and identities.
Denning found that brevity and conciseness of style were key elements in
crafting springboard stories. Such stories told by a trained storyteller
were superior to multimedia, power point or video presentations."
Denning, S. (2000). The Springboard: How storytelling ignites action in
knowledge-era organizations: Butterworth-Heinemann. Nurturing & Enabling
Ventures
-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Romie Littrell
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 1:30 PM
To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Cut and pasted from The Economist, re HBR article on mgt ed through
storytelling
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2666047
A quick look at noteworthy articles from business
journals
Harvard Business Review
May 2004 (Vol. 82, Number 5)
"Telling tales"
Stephen Denning, the author of "Squirrel Inc: A Fable
of Leadership Through Storytelling" (due to be
published next month by Jossey-Bass) uses this month's
Harvard Business Review to trail his big idea-that
"the age-old practice of storytelling is one of the
most effective tools leaders can use". In fact, this
could well be the big management idea of the year. In
its winter 2003 issue, European Business Forum
reported on a school in Italy which is teaching
management skills by analysing Shakespeare's plays. Hewlett-Packard uses
"story consultants" to teach managers the art of the story and how to use it
in their work, while the Tuck business school at Dartmouth recently staged a
play as part of its management-education courses.
Mr Denning, formerly director of knowledge management
at the World Bank, argues that it is not just
storytelling per se that matters, but the choice of
story, and matching the right story to the right
situation. He starts to draw up a schema showing which
stories are best suited to which situations. But, as
he (rightly) says, "The handful of story types that
I've identified is no more than a start."
Best,
Ed
=====
Prof. Romie F. Littrell, Ph.D.
Facutly of Business, Auckland University of Technology
Private Bag 1020
Auckland 1020, New Zealand
Fax (64) 9 - 917 -9629
http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
Nurturing & Enabling Ventures